Canadian Lawyer

W hen she���s not in one of her Toronto offices or at home with her family, chances are good Janet Leiper is in an ocean somewhere in the world, trying to catch a wave. ���I love surfing, and I spend as much time as I possibly can doing it,��� says Leiper. ���There are so many great metaphors there for court and advocacy. The conditions are always changing, so you can���t count on things always being the same. You have to adjust yourself, and you have to show respect for the environment that you���re in . . . I���m always trying to encourage people to take it up, because it is such a great antidote to our lives here. When you go out into the ocean, any problem you have is gone by the time you come out.��� Leiper, the City of Toronto���s integrity commissioner, gazes longingly at a watercolour by Canadian artist Pat Fairhead of an east coast surfing scene on the wall of her city office. The painting���s dark green tones almost make you shiver, but Leiper lights up as she explains she���s been working with a coach for the last five years to improve her skills. ���When I can, I also try to go south to oceans where you don���t have to surf under 5 millimetres of neoprene, with a hood, and boots, and gloves,��� she says. ���I���ve done a lot of sports, but this is one you do for your whole life.��� Surfing is the latest in a long line of personal and professional reinventions for Leiper. Since her call to the bar in 1987, the Toronto lawyer has combined a criminal and administrative law practice with a variety of public appointments, including chairwoman of Legal Aid Ontario, visiting professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, and her most recent role in Toronto, where she has been since 2009. Away from work, she���s also leapt into French lessons, taken acting classes, learned to paint under the guidance of Fairhead, and confronted a fear of heights by literally throwing herself off a fivemetre platform into a swimming pool during diving lessons. ���It���s always been important to me to have this commitment to lifelong learning. Not just in law, but actually learning anything. I think it keeps you fresh, it informs who you are as a person, and it rounds you out as a professional.��� A small white scar on her lower lip, barely visible touching up against the edge of her lipstick, serves as a permanent reminder of her early days on a surfboard. ���I had two categories of waves: the ones that could hurt me if I did something stupid, and the ones that could hurt me whether or not I did everything right,��� says Leiper. The injury fell into the latter category, as a wave slammed Leiper���s board into her mouth, impaling the lip on a tooth. Some observers will see parallels to her term as integrity commissioner, since the rip current under the newly elected and emboldened Mayor Rob Ford always threatens to engulf the office. As a councillor, Ford was antagonistic to the posi28 March 2013 www.CANADIAN L a w ye r m a g . c o m tion even before sweeping to victory in the 2010 election. Since then, frequent run-ins with Ford, including one that nearly cost him his job, have increased scrutiny and led to unflattering headlines, based on allegations from the mayor and some of his allies on council that Leiper���s office is ���politically motivated.��� ���It���s just a waste of taxpayers��� money if you ask me,��� Ford said in an interview with the CBC last October after Leiper ordered him to apologize for criticizing the city���s medical officer of health. ���And the average person thinks the same.��� If the criticism has left a mark, then like that scar on her lower lip, it doesn���t really show. And it certainly hasn���t put It���s always been important to me to have this commitment to lifelong learning. Not just in law, but actually learning anything. I think it keeps you fresh, it informs who you are as a person, and it rounds you out as a professional. her off continuing to do her job, or from considering another public service role when her non-renewable five-year term expires in 2014. In surfing terms: ���The first time you try it, you get beat up by the ocean, and you either go back and say, ���You know what, I think I���ll just watch from the sidelines,��� or you say, ���I want to go straight back in,������ she says. Leiper points out it was the uniqueness of the integrity commissioner position that drew her to the job. When she took over in 2009, the role was only five years old, having grown out of Ontario Superior Court Justice Denise Bellamy���s investigation into allegations of conflict of interest and bribery in the awarding of computer leasing contracts by the city. When her predecessor David Mullan was appointed the inaugural commissioner in 2004, he was also the first one in Canada. ���We���re still in the very early stages, with virtually no jurisprudence. It���s as if the Criminal Code was just created five years ago. There���s a lot of first principles thinking, and a lot of advice and education, which I really enjoy. It���s not routine,��� she says, laughing. ���I���m not a creature of routine.��� Three of her last four reports to city council on named individuals involved either the mayor or his councillor brother, Doug Ford. Most spectacularly, her 2010 report on the mayor���s

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